A social identity perspective on the association between leader-member exchange and job insecurity

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to understand the association between leader–member exchange (LMX) and employee job insecurity. We proposed that LMX quality may foster a sense of organizational insider status, which could reduce the perception of job insecurity. Moreover, the extent to which employees identify their supervisor with the organization (i.e. the extent of supervisor organizational embodiment, SOE) and the variation in LMX quality within the work group (i.e. LMX differentiation) were theorized to be moderators of the effect of LMX quality on perceived organizational insider status. Time-lagged data were collected from a sample of 186 Chinese employees working in 31 work groups. The results indicated that perceived organizational insider status mediated the relationship between LMX quality and job insecurity and that SOE moderated the effect of LMX quality on perceived organizational insider status such that the effect was stronger when SOE was high (vs. low). However, we did not find support for the moderating effect of LMX differentiation. This study provides new insights into the underlying mechanism and boundary conditions of the association between LMX quality and job insecurity, a typical stressor for many present-day workers.

KEYWORDS:

• Leader–member exchange
• organizational status
• social identity
• supervisor’s organizational embodiment
• job insecurity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. As a supplementary analysis, we followed Shaver (2005) by correlating the error terms of the mediator (i.e. perceived organizational insider status) and the outcome (i.e. job insecurity). This did not affect the significance of the relationships examined in our study (LMX to organizational insider status: γ = .53, p < .01; organizational insider status to job insecurity: γ = −.17, p < .05; the indirect effect: estimate = −0.092, 95% confidence interval [−0.158, −0.026]).

2. It should be noted that all hypotheses were also supported without controlling for organizational tenure, gender, group size and group-level LMX. As recommended by a reviewer, we also analysed the conditional indirect effect. The results showed that the indirect effect of LMX through organizational insider status on job insecurity was significant at high levels of SOE (estimate = −0.065, 95% confidence interval [−0.121, −0.009]), but not at low levels of SOE (estimate = −0.027, 95% confidence interval [−0.062, 0.009]). This finding suggests that SOE moderated not only the direct effect of LMX on perceived organizational insider status but also the indirect effect of LMX on job insecurity via perceived organizational insider status.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No. 71671006; 71701074; 71832004).